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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A Health Unto Her Majesty: The Allure Of The Victorian Age by Pamela Sherwood

Today I'd like to welcome Pamela Sherwood to History Undressed! She's talking to us today about the Victoria Age--a time I find so incredibly fascinating. Also, leave a comment for your chance to win a copy of her new release, Waltz With a Stranger!!!

A Health Unto Her
Majesty: The Allure Of The Victorian Age

by Pamela Sherwood

Hello, everyone, and thank you to Eliza for hosting me at
History Undressed!

Queen Victoria, for whomthe era was named.

Today, I’ve been asked to explain what I find so fascinating
about the Victorian Era. Well, initially, there was no fascination--at least, not that I recognized. Like many
historical romance authors, I came to the genre through the Regencies of
Georgette Heyer and her successors. Naturally, I expected that if I ever tried
my hand at writing a romance, it would be set in the Regency: elegant,
polished, witty but dramatic, a fusion of Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott.

Being seduced by the Victorian Age was the last thing I
expected. Not that I disdained it--my graduate work focused on Victorian
poetry, after all--but surely I’d said all I intended to say about the era in
my thesis, right?

Flash forward several years--never mind how many!--and I
find I do have more to say about the Victorian Age, after all.

By historical standards, the Regency is an eyeblink, lasting
less than a full decade, from 1811 to 1820. By contrast, the Victorian period
spans 64 years, Years of sweeping, dramatic, transformative change. Years in
which a sheltered eighteen-year-old princess, who had reportedly said “I will
be good” when informed she would one day rule England, grew by turns into a
stately royal wife and mother of a dynasty, and then the sad, but still
formidable Widow of Windsor, reigning over a vast, far-flung empire upon which
the sun famously never set.

Choose any decade in Victoria’s reign, and you’ll find
something happening: socially, economically, politically, technologically, even
artistically. The Victorians might be considered uptight, repressed, overly
earnest, occasionally hypocritical, and much less dashing than their Regency
predecessors, but they knew how to get things done. A series of reforms
ameliorated the lot of the poor, slavery within the empire was finally
abolished, a police system was established--and the British police force is
still considered by many to be the best in the world. Meanwhile, new
inventions--the railroad, the telephone, electric lighting--brought people
infinitely closer to the world we know today.

Girton College

The vexed “Woman Question” was also being addressed. In 1857 divorce became the provenance of the
civil rather than the ecclesiastical courts, making it slightly easier for
unhappily married couples to dissolve their union. Laws were changed so married
women could acquire and retain rights to property. In 1869, Cambridge University
established Girton College, just for women students. Ten years later, Oxford
followed suit by founding Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville. Degrees were still
an unrealized dream until the 1920s, but women did have the opportunity to
study at Oxford or Cambridge. Towards the end of the century, women who could
claim some education and training were finding jobs outside the home, the
schools, or the shops, working as secretaries, telephone operators, and even
journalists. And the seeds for women’s suffrage were sown as well, germinating
into full-blown rebellion in the Edwardian Age.

Another dramatic change was occurring on the domestic front,
as the “Buccaneers” successfully infiltrated the hidebound English aristocracy,
revitalizing it with new blood, new vigor, and new money. Dynamic, determined,
wealthy beyond dreams of avarice, American heiresses crossed the Atlantic in
droves between 1870 and 1910, intent on securing the best husbands money could
buy. “Best” being a somewhat subjective term, most often synonymous with
“titled,” and many land-rich but cash-poor European peers were more than
willing to be bought.

Several “Buccaneers” found only disillusionment and
disappointment in these transatlantic matches. Others found purpose,
fulfillment, and after some initial struggle, a love to last a lifetime, as
what began as a marriage of convenience developed into a union of shared
interests and mutual affection.

In my debut novel, Waltz
with a Stranger, twin American heiresses Amy and Aurelia Newbold have made
the pilgrimage from New York to London.
Dazzling, ambitious Amy has set her sights high: nothing less than a
peer will do. By contrast, Aurelia hopes only to escape notice. Jilted by her
first love after a riding accident left her lamed and scarred, she believes
herself to be unmarriageable--and undesirable.

Until one chance encounter, one moonlit waltz, changes her
life forever...

"To Marry an English Lord" was one of my main resources, actually. Great book, I agree, and full of fascinating details!

I recently rediscovered Marian Fowler's "In a Gilded Cage: From Heiress to Duchess," an in-depth study of five American heiresses who married English dukes, with mixed results. It was written a few years after "To Marry an English Lord."

Hi, Marin, glad you enjoyed the post. And I agree: the changes that take place during Victoria's reign are truly mindboggling to contemplate in their entirety. The England of 1800 might not even recognize the England of 1900.

I like the 19th century for pretty much the same reason - optimistic, adventurous, constantly changing, nearly modern, but not quite ... and so many, many different and fascinating events and people! Within the space of a century, it seemed like everything changed. From candle and lamplight to gas and electricity ... from horse power to gasoline engine power ... from made by hand to made in a factory.

It's mindboggling to contemplate, isn't it? How much change took place in Victoria's reign alone. I think that's what finally hooked me about setting my books in that era, even though I still harbor a deep fondness for the Regency period.

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Breaking and Exciting News!

Along with several other historical romance authors, our very own Eliza Knight and History Undressed are mentioned in a feature article printed in the Wall Street Journal today, Tuesday, July 19, 2011 -- Front Page (cont. on A12) How to Undress a Victorian Lady in a Historical Romance.